(it rhymes!)

Archive for May, 2008

Yesterday I pulled something in my lower back, and by 6:00 I was hurting enough that I had trouble standing up straight and walking. I decided a bath might help, so while I was soaking in the tub each family member stopped in to check on me.

Lily made me a card that said

“believe in yourself, and don’t think about your back.”

Dawit stuck his head in the door with one quick question:

“Did you poop today Mommy? Sometimes that helps me.”

John asked if I needed anything. I said that what I needed was a hot tub with jets directed at my lower back. To which he said:

Twice this weekend I came within a half and inch of having the “where do babies come from” talk with the kids. Lily is content with the idea that a woman chooses when she wants to have a baby, and the process starts from there. At this point, she isn’t interested in the actual process. Dawit, I think feeling a little left out that girls have this privilege, wants more details about how to be a Daddy. It’s been sooooo close, but I’m going to give only as much as they ask for at this point. They do know all the appropriate words for body parts and and functions–we don’t do any of those silly words. The talk won’t be a total shock to them, but I think I’d prefer to talk with each kid individually, so they aren’t tempted to get a massive case of the giggles.

I did break it to them gently that it would be very unusual for a brother and sister to be parents together…they took that hard enough. So Lily decided that if she couldn’t marry Dawit, then her first grade boyfriend would do. Or Ms. R, her teacher.

Dawit decided to press on to become an Air Force pilot (despite his fear of heights), and that he would be too busy flying to have a wife. After all, he plans on pitching for the Red Sox, and that sounds like quite a busy schedule.

I teach Spanish to preschoolers a couple of times a week. Dawit came with me to class yesterday, and played and read quietly as I conducted class. I overheard this quiet conversation regarding Dawit between two four-year olds, one from Guatemala (D), one white (E):